Hirschfield showed no emotion as he listened to opening arguments in a process that will determine his fate. A jury will determine whether he receives the death penalty or life in prison without the possibility of parole.

The families of Hirschfield's victims, John Riggins and Sabrina Gonsalves, showed plenty of emotion in testifying on Monday.

For Dr. Richard Riggins, it has been 32 years of torture, thinking about the night that his oldest child, John died.

"I feel very guilty that when he's laying there in the ditch, can't breathe, bleeding to death, knowing he's going to die," Riggins told KCRA 3, "and I'm not there and that's where I'm supposed to be," Riggins said.

A jury previously found Hirschfield guilty of kidnapping and murdering the two University of California, Davis students in December 1980.

Riggins and Gonsalves, were tied up with duct tape, and their throats were slashed. They were 18 at the time.

Their bodies were discovered near Lake Natoma two days after they were abducted from Davis.

DNA connected Hirschfield to the "sweetheart murders" case in 2007.

For the families, the trial has been tortuous.

"Definitely the most difficult has been hearing the details of how both he and Sabrina died," said Robert Riggins, John's younger brother.

The bodies of Riggins and Gonsalves were discovered on Dec. 22, 1980 -- the 22nd birthday of Andrea Rosenfield, Sabrina's sister.

On Monday, the older sibling told KCRA 3 how difficult it was to testify in court with her sister's killer present.

"I don't want him to see my parents hurt," Rosenfield said.

"I don't want him to enjoy the fact that he hurt us in this way. And we talked about this (as a family). I talked about how I really don't want to testify in front of him," Rosenfield told KCRA 3.

"It makes us angry that he gets to see this. But you know we're not doing it for him. We're doing it for the jury," Rosenfield said.

One thing the jury won't see is Richard Hirschfield's diary. KCRA 3 obtained a copy, consisting of dozens of pages of pornographic ramblings about his victims. In one passage Hirschfield wrote, "Young or old, 8 to 80, it's all good."

On Monday, lead prosecutor Dawn Bladet urged the jury to bring justice to the families who lost so much.

"The right, just and moral decision at the end of the evidence -- when you weigh these factors, when you weigh the information you heard in this case -- is going to be that this crime, these murders and this defendant deserve death," Bladet told jurors.

But the defense team tried painting a different picture of Hirschfield.

They described him as the byproduct of an incestuous rape and an abusive upbringing.

Lead defense attorney Linda Parisi pleaded with the jury to consider those factors in determining his sentence.

"You have guaranteed one thing," Parisi told jurors. "And it is that Mr. Hirschfield will die in prison. The question now becomes how and when.

"Will he die at the hands of a state executioner, or will he die at the hands of God?"

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